PLUM ISLAND, Mass. -- When Steve DeSalvo heard the waves crashing outside his door this weekend, he started to get worried.

A Nor’easter brought rain and snow to the state on Sunday, signaling an early start to the storm season for New England homeowners. But DeSalvo, whose home sits on the edge of an eroded beach cliff, has extra cause for concern. With each punishing storm, the barrier between the Atlantic ocean and his home on Plum Island beach wears thinner.

“I get worried, obviously,” said DeSalvo. “We’re very concerned about the house, and now (the water) is quite close.”

A picnic table in the empty yard next to DeSalvo’s house marks the spot where his neighbor’s home once stood. The structure was gradually worn down by crashing waves before it gave way and collapsed last November.

Parties have been meeting for a year to try to replenish the beach, which has been eroding at an accelerated rate in recent years. Residents have said that a lack of repairs to jetties and dredging of the nearby Merrimack River have contributed to massive erosion of certain sections of the island.

Police setup a command trailer on the beach during high tide on Sunday to monitor the storm and redirect traffic and residents in the event of coastal flooding. A tower of sandbags along the shoreline also served as a make-shift barrier to slow flood waters, and another 20 truckloads of dirt were dumped in front of two island properties to protect a low-lying street below.

“We now are dependent upon the sewer system,” said homeowner Alan MacDonald. “If that gets breached down at the center island, we’re all out of business because we won’t be able to occupy our homes.”

In January, an Army Corps of Engineers study said if no action were taken, as many as 26 buildings could be lost in the next 10 years.

Officials are hoping to reverse the beach erosion by dredging about 120,000 cubic yards of sand from the Merrimack River channel and distributing it along the beach from Plum Island Center northward to about 80 or 82 Northern Blvd.

Plum Island is a slender peninsula of land on Massachusetts' Cape Ann coast, north of Ipswich and Gloucester, about 40 minutes north of Boston.